Strategic Planning Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

Can You Provide An Example of How Strategic Thinking Resulted In Taking Advantage of a Business Opportunity?

Part of the reason why you do strategic planning is to develop a business plan that is flexible enough to allow you to take advantage of business opportunities or "business doors" that may open up unexpectedly. The ability to do that can provide a tremendous strategic advantage to both large and small companies. Here's an example:

Many years ago, the company, 3M, was working on developing a new kind of adhesive / glue in its laboratory. They were trying to develop something to be used in their famous line of Scotch Tape products. They came up with a glue that simply did not conform to the specifications and functions they required but had other characteristics. It's said that for a number of years, despite efforts by the research scientist involved, nobody at 3M was particularly interested in the use of the product or could even see how such a research "failure" could be transformed into a profitable product.

Enter Art Fry, a product development researcher. Here's a summary, from "Art Fry and the invention of Post-it® Notes" from the 3M site.

Many 3Mers know the famous story of how Fry came upon the Post-it® Note concept out of frustration at how his scrap paper bookmarks kept falling out of his church choir hymnal. In a moment of pure "Eureka," Fry realized that Silver's adhesive could make for a wonderfully reliable bookmark. The broader concept of the Post-it® Note soon followed, along with paper tapes and labels using Silver's adhesive.

But there remained skeptics within 3M as attempts were made to launch this new product. Engineering and production people told Fry that Post-it® Notes would pose considerable processing measurement and coating difficulties and would create much waste. Fry's response demonstrated the approach of the true innovator: "I said, 'Really, that is great news! If it were easy, then anyone could do it. If it really is as tough as you say, then 3M is the company that can do it.' "

The PostIT Note was born.

It's worth pointing out the temporary failure of strategic thinking here. The value of the adhesive, and how it could be used to create a new and innovative product were not evident to the 3M staff. It took someone like Art Fry (and others at 3M who championed the idea) to see the OPPORTUNITY that the adhesive provided.

The use of strategic thinking provided 3M with a hugely successful product that couldn't have happened.